The Greatest Gift
by AgiVega
Summary: Sequel to Stays in the Family. In 1815, Laurence receives a very special Christmas gift.


**A/N: this is a sequel to my earlier one-shot, **_**Stays in the Family**_**. If you want to understand this one, it is highly recommended to read that one first.**

**Disclaimer:** it's all Novik's.

Huge thanks to Michael for the excellent beta again!

**The Greatest Gift**

_24__th__ December, 1815_

The covert of Dover was covered with a sparkly, white blanket, the branches of the trees wearing a lacework of hoarfrost which gave them the image of enchanted beings in an enchanted forest.

Laurence heaved a sigh and looked up from the book he was reading; his head had already started to ache with all the paragraphs and regulations. Temeraire would probably enjoy them, as he usually enjoyed everything his captain found overly boring, but Temeraire was not here, and Laurence was no longer a captain.

He closed the heavy volume with a soft thump and put it aside – he would continue it later, probably after the evening discussion he and Admiral Little had planned. Little, as eccentric and unlikely an admiral as he was, had taken it into his head to forward the case of dragon welfare, and Laurence, having not much else to do, had volunteered to help him with doing research. However, he soon realised that burying himself in thick tomes of legal theory was definitely not his cup of tea. He made a grimace as he imagined his father's face upon learning that he, who had always detested politics, was spending most of his days with researching material that would offer the Corps help in making their voices heard in Parliament.

Closing his eyes, Laurence leaned back in his rocking chair, suddenly feeling older and more disabled than ever. Even in his healthy days, winter usually had that effect on him: the snow and frost-covered trees outside looked like wrinkly elders with white beards, their leafless, gnarled branches stretching towards the overcast sky in vain, like bony, greyish hands hoping to touch something completely out of their reach. They looked just as unhappy, pitiable and lonely as Laurence himself felt.

He could not help but think how nice it would be to be on Madeira where the Admiralty had sent Temeraire – Madeira was lush and green even at this time of the year, it was not for nothing called the 'Island of Eternal Spring'… Temeraire and Emily must be enjoying themselves so much there… they are probably not even thinking of him much…

_No_, he shook his head, they _must be_ thinking of him. Temeraire would never be so unfaithful as to not miss him and not talk about him as often as he could, and Emily… well, Laurence could only hope she was giving him thoughts too. He could not be entirely sure, though, not after only three blissful days they had spent together before she and Temeraire's whole crew had been ordered to go on a mission to Madeira. Their relationship, at least their intimate relationship, had been too short to develop into strong attachment. They had talked about marriage, but never had a chance to arrange it, and parted with nothing but a hug and a 'take care' to tell each other, not exactly how an engaged couple with deep affection for each other should behave. Now she was probably thinking of him as her one-time captain, a friend and a possible future companion, nothing more than that. She had, after all, never said she loved him.

Laurence admitted bitterly that he had not said he loved her either, probably because he had not been completely sure of his feelings for her when she departed. He had already had strong feelings for her years before the Waterloo victory, but when Emily had offered to start a physical relationship with him, he had been too surprised to allow himself to consider his emotions, and had just let himself go with the flow. And Emily, even more than her mother, had proved to be exactly that kind of flow that sweeps a man off his feet and prevents him from thinking clearly.

Since she had left with Temeraire, Laurence had had enough time to think, and with every passing day he got more and more convinced that he was in love with her, and could only hope that he was not mistaking his loneliness, his need for a soft body in his arms, for true love.

With some difficulty, he got up from the rocking chair, shaking his head in disgust at the chair itself. It had been a gift from Berkley and Granby during the first months of his recuperation, and Laurence knew his friends had given it to him with the best of intentions, and had to admit that it was very comfortable, yet, when using the chair, he could not help but liken himself to some seventy-year-old grandfather afflicted with gout. Sometimes he wished it were 'only' gout, that would probably hurt less.

Half a year had passed since his injury at Waterloo, and he kept wondering if the pains would ever go away… Winter and cold, of course, had only made them worse. If only he had his friends here with him to take his mind off his invalidity! But his friends were scattered all around the world, Granby and Iskierka serving in London, Berkley with Maximus in Scotland, only Harcourt and Chenery remained by the Channel with their dragons. The female captain visited Laurence as often as her duties permitted, for which he was eternally grateful, but try as he may, he never managed to talk to her as freely and informally as he could to the males. Jane had been different in this respect, Emily likewise, but when talking to Harcourt, Laurence always felt some awkwardness which might have come from the fact that they had never been as close friends as he had been with Granby, or that she was the wife of one of his oldest friends… Laurence did not know.

With Chenery his discussions had been more informal, a little _too_ informal to Laurence's taste, for Chenery's idea of a good pastime was either getting drunk, or, as he had once put it, 'going into Dover and acquiring some new acquaintances'. At hearing this suggestion, Laurence had raised an eyebrow at the younger man, "You mean a brothel?", and Chenery had waved with a hearty laugh, "Sorry, old friend, I keep forgetting you are now engaged!"

But the truth was that Laurence did not feel engaged at all. As a youth he had felt much more 'engaged' based on the promise he had made little Edith Galman than he felt now when thinking of Emily. After all, should an engaged woman not find time to write to her fiancé at least once every fortnight? Laurence himself had written her weekly, but her replies had been few and far between, not revealing much or her life on Madeira, and mostly consisting only of the messages Temeraire had dictated to her.

Sometimes Laurence had the tormenting impression that Emily did not care for him any longer. Those few 'we miss you's she had sent sounded cold and impersonal, as if she had only considered it her duty to put them down, without really feeling them. Or perhaps Laurence was just imagining things, as most people wallowing in self-pity do: they tend to believe that the world no longer cares for them and they consider it an insult if someone tries to convince them of the opposite.

Laurence had long admitted to himself that he had fallen into as deep a depression as during Napoleon's invasion of England, or probably even deeper. Winter had naturally not helped lift his mood at all, the ever-shortening days and lengthening nights made him ache more and more for company, preferably that of a female to stay with him during the dark hours. And yet, the thought did not even cross his mind to go with Chenery and 'acquire some new acquaintances'. Even if Emily might have become unfaithful to him, he could not find it in his heart to seek pleasure elsewhere. And perhaps, just perhaps, those 'we miss you's had been heart-felt. After all, who can judge the exact emotions behind a line that is put down on paper, without hearing that line spoken?

Just as Laurence got hold of his crutches, a shadow swept over the grounds outside – a black shadow over the pristine white snow.

Laurence nearly let one of the crutches fall. "This cannot be true," he breathed, but his heart began beating so frantically that it suggested: it _could _be true. It _must _be true.

With shaking hands he grabbed the crutches even tighter and began limping towards the door, praying to himself that his eyes did not deceive him, and only stopped by the door to yank his coat off the hook. He stumbled onto the corridor, nearly tripping over his crutches while trying to pull his coat on. It was not an easy feat, given the fact that his hands were just as much needed for supporting his weight as for managing his clothes, but eventually he succeeded without falling, only his hair came loose from the queue. Under normal circumstances he would have looked around to confirm that no one had seen his clumsiness, but this time he paid his surroundings no attention – let everyone laugh at him if they wanted, he could not care less.

Shaking his hair out of his face, Laurence hobbled down the stairs, out of the entrance door, and only then did he realise that he had not changed his comfortable shoes into boots when his legs sank knee-high into the snow. Even of a man in perfect health the struggle across the snow would have required great effort, but Laurence, disabled as he was, barely noticed the difficulties. His heart and mind drove him forward, towards the clearing where he hoped to find the beloved creature whose silhouette he had seen – or had imagined seeing – swooping over the frost-coated trees.

The short journey that had earlier taken him five minutes now took him over twenty, but he did not notice the passing of time; shakily and panting, but with determination and steadiness, he was approaching Temeraire's clearing. The dragon spotted him as soon as he had fought himself across the shrubbery between Dulcia and Nitidus' currently vacant clearing, and, to save him another two hundred yards of struggle, Temeraire crossed the distance in two mighty steps.

Before he knew what was happening to him, Laurence was lifted off the ground, his crutches falling out of his hands, and he was pressed up to Temeraire's muzzle, firmly but gently. His shaky left leg would have surely given up had the dragon's claws not held him so tightly, and as he glanced down, he saw the crutches lying on the snow, from this distance looking like a small pair of hazy sticks – and that was when Laurence realised why they looked hazy: his vision was blurred with tears.

"Laurence, oh, Laurence, I have missed you so much…" Temeraire purred like an oversized kitty, "_we _have missed you so much," he corrected himself which made the ex-captain look up and sniff.

"_We_? You mean… Emily missed me too?" Laurence hastily wiped his tears, embarrassed by such an unmanly display of emotions.

"Why, of course, I dare say she has missed you just as much as I have… or almost," Temeraire replied.

"But then… where is she?" Laurence looked around. "And where is the rest of the crew?"

"I sent away the crew as soon as they took off my harness…"

"Then it must have taken me a horribly long time to get here," Laurence said dryly, knowing it usually took the men at least fifteen minutes to relieve Temeraire of the harness.

"Time does not matter, dear Laurence," the dragon replied gently, "not anymore. All that matters is that we are here at last, with you, and we are not going away… at least, not for quite a while."

"How do you know?" Laurence frowned. "The Admiralty might give you another assignment right tomorrow, and…"

"Tomorrow? Not likely," Temeraire shook his head with a bright expression. "Emily said tomorrow was Christmas, and I should like to see an admiral who dares give us a new assignment on Christmas Day!"

"I never knew you cared about Christmas at all," Laurence said with a small smile.

"Well, I do not, but Emily says it is a wonderful holiday. You never talked to me much about it, so I expect it must be a girl-thing to like it so much… Emily said Christmas was sort of touching and… romantic."

"_Romantic_?" Laurence's eyes widened. He had never imagined he would hear such a word issuing from the mouth of a Roland.

"Oh, yes," Temeraire nodded. "You know, Emily has recently developed a liking for romantic things… she has been reading out to me Shakespeare and Jane Austen and she always wears a dreamy smile at the more… sentimental scenes. She has become quite emotional… not that I mind, it was only a bit strange at first…" Temeraire's voice trailed off, and he looked away, as if reluctant to carry on or to look Laurence in the eye – a most peculiar behaviour that Laurence could not interpret. "But," Temeraire suddenly went on in a cheerful voice, as if he had not stopped for a second, "the point is that Emily said Christmas was a beautiful thing and it was all about… how did she put it? _The greatest gift_. Yes, that is what she said."

"The greatest gift?" Laurence arched an eyebrow at the dragon, his intention of enquiring about Temeraire's recent insecurity forgotten in an instant.

"Yes. She said that in your religion God gave people the greatest gift, his own Son, and that happened at Christmas, and that is why people give each other presents, to commemorate this event. And Emily insisted on us returning to England before Christmas, to be a gift for you! Our assignment on Madeira ended three weeks ago and we took the first dragon transport, and when Emily thought we would not reach here before Christmas if we stayed on board, we decided to make the rest of the journey aloft, so we have flown all the way from Lizard Point and we have managed to get here in time to surprise you!"

"That you have managed," Laurence pressed his cheek to the dragon's muzzle, gratefully stroking the soft black skin. "Temeraire, your return is the most precious Christmas gift I have ever received."

"Well…" Temeraire said in a slightly secretive voice, "you cannot know that… you might receive another, even greater gift…"

"I do not need anything greater," the man shook his head, smiling the widest smile he had managed in months – it was heartening to hear Temeraire blabber on in his trademark, exceedingly optimistic way, and to think that Emily too had wanted to come home for Christmas to be with him… From the lethargy of half an hour ago Laurence had gone to a state of hopeful anticipation, but still did not dare to fully believe everything he had just seen and heard: it might all turn out to be some misunderstanding, his hopes might still be dashed… He needed to see Emily too to be sure that this was not all a dream from which he would wake up and find himself just as lonely as he had been for the past four months…

"Where is Emily?" he repeated his earlier question.

"She left to report our arrival to the admiral," Temeraire replied, "and said she would go and find you right after that, so she might be looking for you in the barracks right now…"

"Then probably I should return there," Laurence mused.

"Or probably not," Temeraire said, stretching his neck to see better over the hedges. "She is heading this way, look!" Laurence nearly lost his balance when the dragon, with a sudden move of his foreleg lifted him even higher. He had to clutch at one of the enormous claws to remain standing.

Emily must have spotted Temeraire holding Laurence, for she began walking faster, and after a hundred yards broke into a run.

"Temeraire, put me down, quick," Laurence said, his heartbeat speeding up just like Emily's steps had, and before he knew, he was standing on the ground and she flung herself into his arms. Without the crutches to hold him upright and her momentum adding to his instability, they landed in the snow, Laurence on his back with Emily lying atop him.

"You know exactly how to sweep a man off his feet," he remarked, mirth glinting in his eyes.

"Hey, that was my line," she chuckled, pressing her lips to his.

Laurence did not know how long they had remained like that, kissing frantically as though trying to make up for all the missed kisses of their time spent apart; all he knew was that his heart was soaring with the blissful knowledge that his hopes had not been in vain – her kisses were definitely not those of a woman who had long lost interest in him. He still did not know why she had been so reluctant to write to him more often, but for the time being did not intend to dwell on it. All that mattered was that she was kissing him with four months' suppressed passion, and he was more than eager to return each and every caress of her lips.

"I have missed you so much," she muttered between two kisses, and despite the hushed quality of her voice, it sounded as sincere as Emily had always been with him.

"And I you," he muttered back, once again catching her lips with his, his mind not for a moment registering the fact that he was half-lying half-sitting in the snow, getting wet, for he did not feel the chill at all. His heart and mind, his whole body was on fire. For the moment he even forgot that they were having eager audience in the person of Temeraire.

Emily fidgeted a bit, encircling his neck with her arms, and he pulled her closer until their winter cloaks felt like a thin layer of unwanted fabric separating two halves of one being. And that was when he felt it – some funny rippling of the fabric between them. It could not have been Emily, for she was lying still in his arms, the only part of her body moving was her lips against his.

Laurence broke the kiss and drew back, rising into a crouching position. She too pulled back and sat on her haunches, her eyes sparkling with some mischief, some secrecy, conveying a silent challenge: 'can you guess'?

As his eyes ran down her figure, he noticed that her cloak was much more loose-fitting than anything he had ever seen her wear; it was concealing her curves almost perfectly – but not quite.

Laurence's jaw dropped, and for several long seconds he felt petrified, just staring at the tiny swell of the cloak around her midsection. "A… are you…?" was all that he finally managed to utter, forcing his eyes to return to her face.

Still wearing an impish grin, she replied, "I told you that day was particularly favourable, didn't I?"

Laurence did not know whether he should laugh or blush to the roots of his hair, or plainly close her into his arms… It was simply too much to take at once, it was overwhelming. Yet, his brains tried to help him out and process all he had heard and seen – and suddenly every little piece of the puzzle fell into place. He finally understood why Temeraire had said they would not be sent on another assignment for quite a while, and why Emily had become overly emotional… but something he still could not comprehend.

"Why… why have you not told me any earlier?" he asked, his mouth suddenly as dry as a parchment.

"Why?" Emily rolled her eyes. "I thought this wasn't something to write in a letter, I wanted to tell you in person. That is why my replies were so short and rare… it was bloody difficult writing to you but keeping silent about this… I have been nearly bursting to tell you, but I have waited… because I wanted to see your reaction. And it was worth it," she playfully boxed into his arm, "you looked hilariously dumbfounded. You still do."

"Indeed," Temeraire nodded vigorously, "but you are not only dumbfounded, are you, Laurence? You are happy too, right? You two have given me a future captain and we are staying with you now for several months, is that not wonderful?"

Emily added, robbing Laurence of the opportunity to comment, "I have just talked to Admiral Little and he has agreed on us staying until Baby Laurence is born, probably a little longer. Though, let me remind you that for the time being, it is just Baby _Roland_," she sent her lover a meaningful glance, "and if you want it to be Baby _Laurence_, you had better marry me quickly!"

For a long moment Laurence just stared at her silently, then, of all the possible replies and reactions he chose the simplest – he reached out and pulled her into his arms. "I love you, Emily."

"I love you too, Will," she murmured into the lapel of his cloak, her arms drawing him even closer until she was pressed up to him, both of them kneeling in the snow. Just an hour ago Laurence would have called anyone a fool who suggested he kneel down with his injured leg, but at the moment it did not hurt him at all – or perhaps it did, but his mind was too occupied with other things to register it. _She had said she loved him. _

As their bellies were touching, he once again felt the tiny ripples of hers, and tears welled up in his eyes. Temeraire had been right: this gift was indeed greater than just receiving his loved ones back, after all, they had brought with them a little miracle.

He sniffed and chuckled into her hair, shame at his public display of emotion and pride at their success of creating an heir so quick formed a crazy mixture in his soul. As he rocked Emily in his arms, it began snowing again, but neither of them noticed for several blissful moments.

Finally it was she who drew back, her eyes also veiled with unshed tears of joy. "Look at you," she said with a giggle, sweeping snowflakes from his hair, "you are all wet!"

"Because a wild amazon has pushed me into the snow," he replied teasingly.

"Come on," she rose to her feet and held out a hand for him, "let's get back to the barracks to get you into dry clothes. Or just get you out of the wet ones…?" she raised an eyebrow at him challengingly, making him blush.

"Pray give me my crutches," he replied, "I do not want you to pull me up again… it is most humiliating. Besides, I weigh too much for a pregnant lady to help me up."

"You and your stupid pride," Emily tutted as she pushed the crutches into his hands, but even as she tried to look scornful, she could not hide a grin.

"Admit that you like my stupid pride," he grinned back at her.

She snorted. "Admit that you like my being a wild amazon."

"You two are adorable when you are arguing," Temeraire perceived. "Like an old married couple."

"We are not really arguing," Laurence replied. "Besides, we are not yet married, and most importantly, I am _not_ old." He drew himself up with the air of a freshly appointed captain. "Actually, I have never felt younger and more energetic."

"Oh, really? Pray prove that," Emily smirked, and with her head beckoned towards the barracks.

"Temeraire, if you do not mind…" the man said, the slight flush on his cheeks deepening into a darker shade of crimson.

"Not at all, Laurence, not at all," replied the dragon with a loving expression. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas to you too, my dear," Laurence beamed at Temeraire, then glanced at his fiancée. "For me, it could not possibly be happier."

**FINIS**

**A/N: Merry Christmas to all my readers!**

**There is a little LaurEmily Christmas fanart linked at the end of my ffnet bio, check it out. :)**


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